1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control device for a passenger conveyor, and more particularly, to a control device for a passenger conveyor which assures security by automatically stopping the passenger conveyor when foreign matter is caught between a skirt guard and a step or between a cleat of the adjacent steps and a riser.
2. Description of the Related Art
Passenger conveyors of the type which stop for an emergency when a passenger's shoe or the like is caught between a step and a skirt guard of the passenger conveyor are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 176288/1988.
Control devices for such passenger conveyors have a safety switch which is activated when foreign matter is caught between a step and a skirt guard provided at each of the right and left outer sides of the step, or a safety switch which activates when a rear roller of a rear step floats up due to a shoe or the like being caught between the cleat of the adjacent steps and a riser. When these safety switches are activated, the control devices stop the passenger conveyor for the emergency, thereby preventing the passenger's foot or the like from being hurt and assuring the safety of the passengers.
Before the operation of a passenger conveyor which has stopped due to an emergency is resumed, the cause of the emergency stop, i.e., the foreign matter, such as a shoe, caught between the skirt guard and the step, must be removed. At that time, in a case where the foreign matter cannot be pulled out, the passenger conveyor must be disassembled or be moved in the direction opposite to that in which it was moving when the foreign matter was caught by manually operating a driving unit housed in a machine room.
However, in the conventional passenger conveyors of the above-described type, since the foreign matter caught between the skirt guard and the step must be removed by either disassembling the passenger conveyor or by manually moving the step when the passenger conveyor is to be returned to its normal operation, it takes time to remove the cause, and removal operation is complicated. Hence, in a case where a passenger's foot is caught, it takes time to rescue the passenger, and this may cause further injury.